October 15, 2008	Wednesday	Shawwal 15, 1429

KARACHI, Oct 14: The Sindh High Court directed the provincial home secretary on Tuesday to pay up Rs185,000 as compensation to an illegally-confined detainee within 10 days and report compliance on Oct 24.

The payment was ordered by the court on Nov 1, 2007, and a provincial government law officer undertook on Sept 22, 2008, following a contempt application moved by Gulzar Ahmed, the aggrieved petitioner, that the amount would be paid by Oct 13. No payment was made and the contempt plea came up before a division bench comprising Justice Khilji Arif Hussain and Justice Qamauddin Bohra on Tuesday. The petitioner’s counsel, Syed Nehal Hashmi and Chaudhry Sajjad, pressed for contempt proceedings against the respondent home secretary.

The bench asked the secretary to deposit the amount with the SHC nazir within 10 days and appear before it on Oct 24, the next date of hearing.

The petitioner, an employee of the Pakistan Steel, was arrested and confined in 1998 on suspicion of his involvement in the murder of his two brothers-in-law. He lost his job and his wife also obtained divorce. His house had to be sold but he was discharged from the case for lack of any evidence to connect him with the offence. He moved the high court for compensation and the court granted him compensation at the rate of Rs5,000 per day for ‘unlawful deprivation of liberty’ from August 24, 1998, to Sept 30, 1998.

The home department was allowed to recover the amount (Rs185,000) from the officials responsible for illegal detention. An appeal against the Nov 1, 2007, order was dismissed by the Supreme Court.

The court was informed that the salary and other dues of the investigation officer of the case, Malik Abdul Haq, had been withheld and that the home department had approached the chief minister to allocate the amount for payment to the former detainee. The court remarked that it was concerned with ensuring compliance and the home department and its secretary were free to make whatever arrangements they deemed appropriate to make the payment.

CS summoned

Another division bench comprising Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali and Justice Pir Ali Shah asked the chief secretary to appear on October 21 and show cause why he should not be tried for contempt for the provincial government’s failure to issue appointment letters to 17 female medical officers as ordered by the court.

The petitioners were among the 131 female and four male candidates finally selected by the Sindh Public Service Commission from among a large number of applicants for appointment as medical officers in the population welfare department.

The court observed that the petitioners had been selected through the prescribed process of selection and could not be denied appointment in an arbitrary manner. Emphasizing transparency in all government appointments, it gave the government 30 days to issue appointment letters to the petitioners or inform them of the reasons behind its refusal to act on the SPSC recommendations.

Advocate Mohammad Nawaz Shaikh, the petitioners’ counsel, submitted before the division bench that the stipulated period had since elapsed but the government had neither issued appointment letters nor a speaking order to reject the commission’s recommendations. He held the chief secretary responsible for not complying with the court order and sought his prosecution for contempt of court.

Order reserved

The bench comprising Justices Khilji and Bohra, meanwhile, reserved its order on a petition moved by about 90 employees of the State Bank against what they called discriminatory and arbitrary policy adopted by the bank in respect of grant of annual increments. Liaquat Ali Sahi and other petitioners submitted through Advocates Chaudhry Rasheed Ahmad and Kashif Paracha that high grade officers of the bank who were already getting hundreds of thousands as remunerations had been given an annual increase of up to 15 per cent as against a maximum of four per cent raise given to the low grade workers. Some of them were not given any increment at all.

The petitioners said even if the bank claim that the increments were based on performance was accepted, there were competent workers in every grade. However, the bank has confined its bounty to high grades as if all of them were more efficient than the rest of the employees.

Mai Kolachi case

Another division bench consisting of Justices Azizullah M. Memon and Khwaja Naveed Ahmed formulated three issues to be settled in the case of Mai Kolachi Co-operative Housing Society land dispute case after hearing Advocate Imran Ahmad for the Pakistan Rangers.

The first issue to be settled is whether the Rangers were allotted five acres of land claimed by them in 1995 and, if so, on what terms. The second point at issue is whether the allotment was subsequently cancelled by the board of revenue and, if so, for what reasons. The third issue is whether the 96 acres resumed by the provincial government from the National Cement Industries in early 1990s, the 79 acres allotted to the petitioner society in 1996, and five acres each leased out to the Rangers and other agencies each were clearly demarcated.

Notices issued

The bench comprising the CJ and Justice Pir Ali Shah, meanwhile, issued notices to the provincial government and police for Nov 5 in a petition challenging the list drawing of a list of the members of militant religious organizations for curbs on their movement under the Anti-Terrorism Act.

Petitioner Syed Amin Raza submitted through Advocate Maqbulur Rehman that his name was placed on the list as a member of Sipah-i-Mohammad five years ago and he had to regularly visit the Jamshed Town police station since to report on his ‘good behaviour’. He said Sipah-i-Mohammad was a Shia Organization while he was a Sunni. He said the ATA fourth schedule, under which the impugned list was drawn up, was repugnant to several fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution.

Expressway DPs

The bench consisting of Justices Memon and Ahmed issued notices to the provincial and city district governments in a petition moved by seven persons displaced by the Lyari Expressway project.

Advocate Shaukat Ali Shaikh submitted on behalf of the petitioners that the petitioners had been paid compensation at the rate of Rs10,000 per square yard for the land acquired from them for the project while others had been given as high an amount as high as Rs50,000 per square yard. The lawyer said the petitioner had been discriminated against in violation of a high court order for payment of adequate compensation to the displaced persons.